


I'm So Sorry, Jake, But I Really Need A Favor.

by Fzgoi



Series: Dirkjake works [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dirk Strider and Dave's Bro Aren't the Same Person, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, MTF John Egbert (June Egbert), Mutual Pining, Nonbinary Roxy Lalonde, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Dirk Strider, POV Second Person, Past Dirk Strider/Caliborn, Pining, Pretty much every character is at least mentioned and described tbh, Trans John Egbert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27653279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fzgoi/pseuds/Fzgoi
Summary: In short, Dave is getting married in six weeks, and you- Dirk Strider, that is- kind of told your ex that you were going with your longtime crush. Cue mischief, mayhem, and mutual pining.Currently on Hold! Will update when possible.
Relationships: Calliope & Jade Harley, Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Gamzee Makara/Tavros Nitram, Jake English/Dirk Strider, John Egbert/Roxy Lalonde, Nepeta Leijon & Equius Zahhak, Nepeta Leijon & Feferi Peixes, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, Sollux Captor/Aradia Megido, Terezi Pyrope/Vriska Serket
Series: Dirkjake works [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017364
Comments: 7
Kudos: 13





	I'm So Sorry, Jake, But I Really Need A Favor.

**Author's Note:**

> I am... very sorry if this is out of character! I'd like to think I did a good job of portraying Dirk, though. Also, sorry to any Caliborn lovers out there... I don't think he'll be treated very well in this fic solely because I am in dire need of a foil. Is that the right term?

Your name is Dirk Strider. You are a twenty-seven-year-old gay man, software engineer, and, last time you checked, five foot and six-point-five inches tall. Roxy makes a habit of calling you a Short King. And, currently, you are walking from the local Target to the Starbucks across the street, only halfway paying attention to whatever likely-ironic rant your younger brother, Dave Strider, was going on about. You kind-of clocked out of the conversation about… five minutes ago? The last thing you heard was that Karkat- his fiancé and boyfriend of five years- has been entirely anal about the color scheme of their wedding.

  
They were going to be getting married in six weeks, and of course, to you that seems like plenty of time, but in wedding-speak that is… probably crunch time, to be honest. Honestly, you could have been invited with only a week and a half until the date and you’d be there. Well, assuming you didn’t have anything going on in your incredibly busy life, of course. Which you wouldn’t. Anyway, you were going to be attending as the groomsman, which is, in your opinion, really just a fancy way of saying that you’re his favorite. You wouldn’t be the only person in the wedding party, though, of course, because Dave is… well, he’s Dave, and that means that he’s the sickest motherfucker since… whoever prompted the invention of the thermometer. You’d google that, but you don’t think you care enough about this little analogy.  
In addition to you, Dave Strider’s best friend- and ex-girlfriend- June Egbert would be standing behind him to either cheer him on or boo him, depending on how well-written his vows are.

  
Thinking about the specifics of Dave’s wedding arrangements make you start to think about Rose and Kanaya’s wedding, scheduled for this coming Spring. Which, speaking of Rose, you wonder if she’s going to go all-out for this thing and dress like some super-important donor to a highly-prestigious company’s tenth anniversary. She tends to ensure that she looks incredible for all events with even a hair more formality than a trip to the grocery store.  
Your name is Dirk Strider. You, unfortunately, tend to get wrapped up in your own train of thought in the middle of conversations. Really, it’s less of a train, and more of a superhighway, with hundreds of cars veering past each other at incredibly high speeds, crashing, burning, and with only a few getting to their intended destinations. Look at that, an accident on highway I-87 as we speak!

  
Anyway, you stopped listening to Dave a few minutes ago, so you can’t be sure, but you also think that your extended family and brothers and parents are going to be there. Therefore, you have every intention to be fucking hammered before Dave steps up to the altar. Of course, you will respectfully forget to mention this to him, because you handle your alcohol very well, and you’re certain that he’s already incredibly stressed about the whole ordeal. Specifically, your family’s tendency to make things all about them at pretty much any opportunity even half-presented to them.

  
You’re pretty sure, though, that you don’t need to worry too much about the stresses of having to deal with your family since Dave also invited your mutual friends to this gathering. Namely, Roxy and Rose LaLonde, who were cousins that you’d known since middle school, as well as Jane Crocker and June Egbert, Jade Harley, Jake English, and Calliope Cherubim. Of these seven, you were closest with Roxy, who you consider to be your best friend. You had also been pining for Jake English for about seven years, even though you’d been in a couple of relationships in that time. Which… really wasn’t entirely fair to any of those men, but whatever, you don’t have time to delve into the ethics of dating while you’re hopelessly in love- in love?- with some dude you’ve known since you were 17. Remember that superhighway? I think we need some paramedics.

You tune back into what your brother was saying right before he goes over the RSVP list. How convenient.  
He glances up at you over his shades before he starts reading off names. “Mom. Dad. Grandma and Grandpa, both pairs, which should be interesting, and hopefully won’t end in any broken arms or melodramatic shitfits or anything. Aunt Becca has confirmed that she’ll be there, but Aunt Yvonne will probably not be there, she said she has something that day, which probably means she’s too preoccupied with her hell-children, but honestly I think I’m glad to be free of them. Of course Rose and Jade and Jane and everybody else will be there. I haven’t looked at Kar’s family but I really don’t know what to expect there and I think maybe he should go over that.”

You bite at your cuticle a little bit, out of habit.

“Now, onto the long list of celebrities who I invited in hopes of receiving various gifts off the registry. Right, Ben Stiller and Barack Obama and Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah have yet to confirm. Honestly, I’m really upset about Ben, you’d think he’d have the decency to at least send a ‘no’ reply! Uh, scrolling just a bit, but I really think that’s…” Your brother started to slowly trail off, which was fairly unusual for the chatterbox.

“What’s up?” You ask, looking down at his phone, which he immediately put back in his pocket.

“Right. So, Dirk, I think I have some bad news that I really really need to give you. But please, when I tell you this, keep in mind, you’d rather hear it from me now than twenty minutes before when I’m supposed to go say my vows, right!?” He responded, clasping his hands together and clenching them tightly together.

A gesture you were probably all too familiar with, given how often you needed to tell your boss that the app was gonna actually probably take, like, an extra three weeks than you’d originally thought- which is very rarely your fault, in all honesty.

“Uh, right, okay, keeping that in mind. What’s wrong, bromeo?”

“...Would you happen to recall me telling you that I was going to send out like half a million invites to a bunch of people in the hopes that they would either recognize that I was being ironic or would be too busy to be able to attend?”

“...Yes, why?”

“Well. As it would turn out, one of those people- well, probably more than one- anyway, one of them has quite the history with you. Short bald guy, no eyebrows, super-aggressive, seems like he’s gonna show up on the news someday soon for lunging over the counter and strangling a cashier who wouldn’t give him the Thanksgiving discount on a pair of washed-out jeans because it was two days after the offer ended?”

“Caliborn? Wait- hold on a fucking minute- Dave, are you telling me that you invited fucking Caliborn, of all people, to your wedding in the hopes that he wouldn’t show up?”

The silence from Dave is enough of a confirmation for you to put your hands on your face and press your palms directly against your eyeballs, trying desperately to press those bad boys so far into your skull that you’d be unable to ever see anyone ever again. You also consider taking a sledgehammer to the sides of your head so you go deaf as well as blind. Then you’d never have to deal with seeing or hearing anyone you don’t want to.

* * *

Caliborn Cherubim wasn’t an awful person. Far from it, actually! He was just incredibly immature, and his personality didn’t match up very well with yours, and he was a little bit eccentric for you. And, of course, you were desperately hung up on one Jake English. You dated about four years ago for six months, and in all honesty, things did move kind of quickly. Within four months of dating, you’d moved into his apartment. It took only another two for you to realize three things.

First of all, you’re way, way, wayyyy too in love with Jake motherfucking English to be able to seriously date anybody else without feeling like you’re missing out on the English train. Secondly, you have a somewhat difficult time adapting to someone else’s place, someone else’s house rules, and someone else’s way of doing the laundry and the dishes and leftovers. Thirdly- your personality didn’t match up with Caliborn’s well enough for the two of you to go on dating.

So you moved out after being together for six months.

Gave him back your key and everything.

Things didn’t end entirely amicably, but they also didn’t end with any flying cooking utensils. So… you guess that was mostly good.

However, you also never thought you were going to have to deal with him again.

You were wrong.

Clearly.

Oh boy. And now you were going to have to pretend that you were totally fine with this and like it wasn’t going to be awkward! Oh boy.

You had excused yourself within twenty minutes of finding out the bad news and are currently lying on your bed fully clothed staring up at your blank ceiling. You could hear the neighbors- all of them, above you, beside you, across the hall. It’s exceptionally loud and a little annoying, but serves as a great audial backdrop for a crisis. You were still wearing your boots, the bottoms of which were covered in dirt. You really should be more careful about wearing boots on the sheets.

It feels like your thoughts were swirling around you, engulfing you from time to time. You’re thinking about a thousand things and nothing all at once. Caliborn, of course, was one of these things you’re simultaneously obsessing over and also not thinking about- various mannerisms your psyche had taken the time to memorize, various little things he did that got on your nerves, and various little things that you were worried you would have to deal with again in six weeks. One of them was the fact that he seemed to have just the one volume level- yelling.

Another was how careless he was with all of his things- you may be a bit of a hot fucking mess when it comes to organization, but you do have something approximately close to a system. Sure, you don’t know where everything is at all times, but you certainly keep a rough idea of where your shit is. For instance, you don’t know the exact location of that sweater your grandmother gave you when you were twenty-five, but you’re pretty sure it’s packed away in some corner of your closet in the general living space area.

Caliborn was another case entirely. He didn’t know where any of his shit was. You once had to go out somewhere and he spent a majority of the evening searching for a single shoe- so long that you ended up not being able to go at all.

When you left his apartment that day, carrying about three dozen little things in a box, you didn’t think you’d ever see him again, apart from Callie’s wedding. Which… you’re really not so sure they’d even invite him to.

Again, you were very clearly very wrong. It wasn’t their wedding you’d be forced to make small talk with him at, but your own brother’s! What a twist.

Another of those things you were thinking about while also definitely not thinking of in the slightest was one Jake English. Who was, in all honesty, part of the reason why you ended up breaking things off with Caliborn and hadn’t been in a real relationship since.

I mean, how could you not be basically in love with him? He has beautiful fucking eyes- hazel but with just a little more green than you’d expect- and a goofy lopsided bucktooth smile and a surprising amount of muscle mass for him to have once been a twiggish little kid. And the way he talked- god, may he take you now. Something like a 1940’s gentleman and an overexcitable little kid, using weird expressions that you don’t think have been in use since your grandfather was born.

It’s really a wonder that he didn’t go around breaking the hearts of every person he met- you knew for a fact that Jane had definitely pined after him for a while, and you’re incredibly certain that even Roxy wanted to tap that for a few months.

Another thing that you can’t shake is all the other people who were going to be there- you couldn’t really remember the last time you’d spoken to your parents, but you know for a fact that the last time you’d been around your oldest brother he’d made Dave so upset that the two of you skipped out early and went to an old playground in the next town over. Which was really really not like you, and not like Dave. You just hoped that he wouldn’t cause such a reaction in Dave at the kid’s wedding. Well, he wasn’t really a kid anymore, but that doesn’t actually matter much to you at all. He’s still your little brother to you, and goddamn if you’re not gonna stick up for him if anybody makes him upset.

You also can’t help but think about Calliope. You know that Caliborn wasn’t exactly a great brother to her, and although you only found out after you broke things off with him, you could definitely see little behaviors and such in the way he acted. You wondered how she would take the news?

You don’t remember exactly when you drifted off to sleep. Most people don’t, after all. You just remember waking up the next day.

* * *

For Dave and Karkat you knew that it was definitely difficult to pick out what to wear and what to do and what to serve and where to have the wedding. Luckily for you, all you needed to do was dress fancy and show up and stand behind Dave and give a speech a little later in the night. So for you, getting ready for this wedding was simple- just show up to the local Kohls and buy your outfit. Honestly, before you knew Caliborn would be there, the only problem that you expected to have was with the “no shades” rule that Karkat had supposedly demanded.

You’d just wear a pin of your shades on your vest, you guessed.

Unluckily for you, however, when you go to a Kohls six weeks before a wedding and someone who’s going to the same wedding at the same time is at the very same Kohls on the same day as you, going in as you come out, it’s unfortunately likely that they’ll try to make conversation with you.

Especially if they’re an ex that you’ve been avoiding for multiple years.

So as you came out of the Kohls and walked toward the bus stop, it was only natural for Caliborn to try to talk to you.

Caliborn is a short dude, even shorter than you, topping in at maybe 5-foot-three. Short. And bald- both he and Calliope have alopecia, and although Callie often wears long white wigs and draws on their eyebrows daily, Caliborn truly did not care to give even the slightest of shits. Honestly? You could respect that, especially since he got picked on in middle school, and you know it really fucked with his self-esteem. You’re glad he seemed to still be himself. Not so glad about the yelling.

“DIRK!” He hollers from ten feet away, picking up the pace into a full-blown run.

“Caliborn.” You respond, resisting the urge to turn around and book it down the street.

“I haven’t seen you in years!!”

There’s a reason for that.

“Yeah, it’s been a little while, hasn’t it. How’ve you been, Cal?”

“Good!! How have you been, Dirk?”

“I’ve been fine. Busy.”

Cue the awkward silence.

“So. Is anybody coming with you to the wedding?”

Caliborn has never been the type to dick around with pleasantries, but he’s also never been this forward. You pull a blank and realize a couple of things. First off, if you say no, you come across as lonely. However, if you say yes, you’re lying because you are indeed lonely. Secondly, you really do not want to be lonely. Especially not at Dave’s wedding.

You say the first thing that comes to mind.

Which is very much not your greatest idea ever.

“J...aaake English, actually. Yes. He’ll be there with me.”

...Fuck.


End file.
